


Of Seduction, Emotions, and Spycraft

by ruff_ethereal



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F, Jealousy, Oblivious Diana, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 11:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12681219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal
Summary: Diana gets jealous as Akko tries to seduce a target, the rest of their team tries to keep her emotions from jeopardizing the mission.





	Of Seduction, Emotions, and Spycraft

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching Princess Principal, and couldn't find the will to write anything. This is what resulted.

Diana liked to think she lived the old Galatian adage of “No more, no less than what is needed, when it is needed” through her self-control; she was like a finely attuned central processing core for the most advanced automatons available today, every action, every thought, every emotion deliberate, calculated, and executed with the utmost efficiency, not a bug, not a miscalculation, nor an unexpected result to be seen.

So why did she find herself suddenly blindsided by this flash of hot, explosive rage rising from her gut, engulfing her entire being in seconds, making her heart race, her jaws clench with the strength of a trash compactor, her hands shake as she balled them into tight fists…?

“Damn it, Diana, get a hold of yourself!” she heard someone whisper.

Diana wrenched her eyes to them, found Sucy subtly passing by with her tray still loaded with empty glasses and a bottle of drink yet to be poured. Almost immediately, the rage was extinguished, like the heavens had opened up and down came crashing a deluge of water, cold sense pouring back into Diana.

“ _Yes, of course, the mission,”_ Diana thought to herself. “ _Calm down, and focus on the mission.”_

And with that, she turned her eyes back to her target, and the fiery fury ignited once more.

A good distance away, Akko and their target chatted away, completely oblivious to the fact that they were being watched, and that those eyes were burning with hatred, and shooting out icy cold daggers with terrifying speed and frequency.

“ _It isn’t right,”_ Diana thought to herself. “I’m _the expert_ _on_ _social matters and seduction—_ hell and damnation _, this was_ actually _my life for several years!”_

But, their intel was quite thorough, and clearly good, as the Countess Vishka was completely _enamored_ with Akko, despite the fact that she was _blundering_ , nearby guests glaring at her or distancing themselves to avoid her loud laughing and her energetic gesticulations, constantly tripping over her words in Ibarra, completely at a loss when any of the usual subjects of polite conversation came up…

… And worst of all: _none of it was an act._

Diana should have been the one in Akko’s place. She should have been the one seducing Vishka, isolating the social butterfly, completing their mission as soon as possible to minimize the risk of counter-intelligence operations ruining everything.

Never mind that the source was _quite clear_ that the Countess was _exclusively_ interested in women from Hoshiko, that she barely batted an eyelash or even cast a glance at the most beautiful Galos and its closest neighbours had to offer—Diana was _certain_ she would have found a way to catch her infamously fleeting and flighty attention, persuaded her to make an exception in her preferences, greatly reduced the odds of failure for this mission by having their most competent member play this absolutely _crucial_ part.

And who _kn_ _ew_ what sort of fate might have befallen Akko, inexperienced, naive, and all too trusting as she was? Did Vishka already suss out that she was a member of the Sway, and was simply buying time—or worse yet, _amusing herself_ —before her country ’s own spies moved in? When— _if_ —Akko convinced her to leave the crowded and lively ballroom for a potentially scandalous liaison, who would be the one finding themselves cornered and trapped, outsmarted and taken for a fool?

There was no question in Diana’s mind—she had to intervene, _now._

She took two steps toward Akko and Vishka, and on the third stride, found her foot caught in a very deliberately extended leg. Diana tripped and fell, years of training and finely honed instinct making her throw her hands out, save the much more vulnerable parts of her body the pain of a nasty fall.

Only when she was pushing herself up from the marble floor did she realize she had unconsciously balled them into fists.

She looked up, found Sucy glaring at her, her tray, its glasses, and the bottle full of wine gleaming ominously in the light. _“Get out of here,”_ Sucy hissed, “I’ll be there to ‘conveniently’ guide them to a room.”

“ _I’m_ leading this mission!” Diana snapped back as she righted herself.

“Yeah, and it looks like you’re about to blow it for all of us!” Sucy said as she poured some wine into a glass. “Faelas, Diana, _I get i_ _t_ —you’re jealous, but _now’s not the time!”_

Diana blinked. “Jealous? Why would I be--” she didn’t get to finish her sentence before Sucy handed her a glass, “accidentally” spilled the bright red liquid all over Diana’s pale blue dress.

Sucy and Diana feigned horror, going through a bevy of apologies coming from the “lowly servant” and heartfelt reassurances from the “noblewoman” that she wouldn’t use her considerable influence and power to punish the “waitress” for such a folly. All the while, out of the corners of their eyes, they watched Akko and Vishka, neither aware of the scene for the former’s imitating some sort of animal, and the latter trying to guess what in the realm it was.

“Ah, I must go and see if my dress can still be salvaged,” Diana said, smiling ruefully at Sucy. “Do be more careful from here on out!” she said as she left.

“I will, milady!” Sucy replied, before they parted ways, her beginning a discrete patrol around and within eye-shot of Vishka and Akko, Diana to the bathroom that doubled as one of their entry points. She disappeared into a stall, climbed into a vent on the floor, and emerged out into one of the cramped secret rooms in the castle, where the rest of their team was passing the time, or monitoring the crystal array feeds.

Lotte gasped as she noticed Diana, tearing her face from the tablet in her hands. “Diana!” she cried, her eyes widening. “You’re back!”

“Change of plans,” Diana replied cooly. “Sucy will be the one leading Vishka and Akko to the trap, not I.”

Lotte nodded. “What happened?”

Lounging in the corner, leaning on the wall, Amanda snorted. “Isn’t it obvious? Our _great_ _leader_ couldn’t take the sight of someone else making the moves on her crush, so she decided to duck out before her emotions get in the way of the mission.”

Diana resisted the urge to glare at Amanda, keeping her face cool and calm as ever. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Amanda,” she said flatly.

Amanda rolled her eyes. _“Sure_ you don’t… you know, for the one who’s supposed to be the best spy out of all of us, you do a _really_ crap job at keeping your ‘secret crush’ _secret._ ”

Diana narrowed her eyes. “Just focus on the mission, Amanda,” she said as she sat down beside Lotte, moving some of the floating surveillance feeds towards her. Completely out of coincidence, one of them just happened to have Akko and Vishka clearly visible in the bottom corner.

Diana couldn’t read Vishka’s lips as she was facing away from the lens, but the way she put her hand on Akko’s shoulder as she stepped quite a bit closer to her, the Hoshikon words Akko was sputtering--” _N-Nani?!”,_ their word for “What?!”--told her all she needed to know…

… And just like that, the scene was gone, Lotte switching that holographic square with a completely different feed all the way on the other side of the ballroom, with all the grace and speed of a parlour trick magician, or perhaps a cunning card player.

Lotte said nothing, and neither did Diana as they continued to watch the feeds, eyes out for any sort of suspicious activity in the crowds.

In the corner, Amanda just rolled her eyes. _“Whoever said spy work was mostly several hours of Nothing obviously never worked with this team...”_ she thought, smiling.


End file.
